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Monday, January 21, 2013

Long March, January 2013.

AN INSTRUCTIVE ABSURDITY

Maryam Sakeenah

Much has been written about the Theatre of the Absurd in
Islamabad on the Ides of January. I wouldn’t dignify it with comment on the
agenda, the proceedings, the success or the lack of it. But I am interested in
examining how it could have happened, with the support of the many thousands
who braved the cold and the rain and stood their ground. Hope is a great thing.
What drove the many to Islamabad in the face of security threats under the grey
skies was hope. But what makes it ironic and poignant is how unworthy was that
which they pinned their dreams and expectations to.

But when deprivation, helplessness, desperation beat hope up
to a frenzied furore, and when you add to this the ignorance and gullibility of
the average Pakistani, you have what you saw in Islamabad: men women and
children risking all to lend strength to a controversial cult figure ensconced
in his well-furnished mobile cabin crying hoarse about justice while the
devotees that had made his absurd drama happen shivered in the cold in the open, given the ever-present fragile security situation in this country.

While the parallel with how the Lal Masjid crisis was
brutally dealt with brings out the merits of democracy- any democracy, even as
bad as this one- there are other lessons to be learnt. With crowds cheering to
the sensational rhetoric emerging from the Hallowed Container, I wondered why
the many far less controversial veteran Islamic scholars that have lived and
died in this country, could never manage to call the shots or muster up a following
as large or as willing to brave the billows to rally to their leader’s call.
Yeats wrote: ‘The best lack all
conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.’

There are lessons to be learnt by Islamically inclined
leaders and organizations. Qadri’s inclusive appeal, his embrace of diversity
and reaching out to minority groups and sects has been clearly articulated. In
the wake of 9/11, his masterstroke was in managing to emerge as one of the few
voices from this part of the world categorically rejecting extremism and the
Taliban’s misuse of religion to justify violence. The voluminous treatises on
tolerance in Islam, virtues of non violence and the fatwa against terrorism and
suicide bombings was an instant hit for the very fact that it was presented
from this part of the world by a beard-sporting individual in religious
headgear, when others of the kind busied themselves criticising US policies solely
and exclusively, deflecting criticism away from the malaise within. The
international acclaim and support he has garnered is something to speak of.

One can compare this to the fact that many religious groups
and individuals had in this time produced article after article and delivered
sermon after sermon almost entirely focused on refuting deviant innovative
practices among other sects, democracy as a kufr-based system and the media as
a vicious propaganda-machine. Islamic institutions produced work on the
intricacies of theology, the curse of nationalism and the need for ruling by
Islam, all in a language and manner that relates little to the average
Pakistani Muslim. When the nation was beset with challenges to its very
integrity and survival at the hands of those operating in the name of Islam,
Islamic scholars busied themselves in traditional theological discourse,
occasionally issuing fiery critique of American policy and the Zionist and secular
lobby. Few voices rose to reject the rise of extremist religiosity that took up
violence against non combatants and had the audacity to sanctify it in the name
of Islam. Few voices reached out to the public confused between the extremist
and the secular-liberal discourse, seeking a satisfying, middling narrative.
Few addressed with precision and clarity the problems of the mass-man. Few
addressed growing concerns in the rest of the world about violence in the name
of Islam on the rise in this part of the world. It is a fundamental principle
of conventional morality that self-criticism is nobler. By failing to rise to
the occasion, they have reduced themselves to utter irrelevance, ceding ground
to ambitious opportunists wearing the ravishing guise of religiosity like Qadri
in a nation peopled by the religiously sentimental semi-educated and
illiterate.

And this brings us to the most vital point- in the final
analysis, the grandiose Theatre of the Absurd in Islamabad highlights like
never before the fact that the greatest challenge we confront is the ignorance
and lack of awareness among the common man- and this threatens to make a
mockery of our still nascent democracy. It reduces a nation of 180 million to
slogan-chanting, gullible, hero-worshipping rabble taken in with whoever can
play the Promised Messiah best. And as long as we do not take on this enemy
within, demagogues and those practised in the art of publicity-seeking
theatrics will continue to claim attention they do not merit- by the sheer
numbers of their ignorant, juvenile, emotionally charged and intellectually
naive fan-following.